


Impostor Worm

by westerno



Category: Among Us (Video Game)
Genre: Aliens, Androids, Angst, Artificial Intelligence, Child Death (minimally described), Clones, Drama, Dubious Cloning Ethics, Fake Science, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Impostors are crewmates being parasitized by - you guessed it - a worm, Multi, Rated M for Referenced Abuse - Death & Child Death - Themes - Trauma - Violence, Science Fiction, Some Humor, Technobabble, also some real science
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:28:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26774431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westerno/pseuds/westerno
Summary: After ejecting Cyan from the airlock, the three remaining crewmates of the Skeld assumed it was all over.Then Pink found something in Comms.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 37





	1. The Spawnling

Josh and White got Cyan into the airlock with disturbing ease. Pink barely had to push. (Josh figured xe was glad not to have to.) Cyan struggled, of course, but he’d never been particularly strong, and not even at his most desperate could he overpower the largest man on the Skeld.

“As acting captain,” White snarled, seemingly unmoved as Cyan smashed his fists against the airlock doors without restraint, “I hereby relieve you of duty.” He nodded to Josh.

Solemnly, she pressed the outer airlock door control. If he wasn’t crushed to death by the pressure release slamming his body against the airlock walls, Cyan would be left to die a slow death in the vast emptiness of space.

After closing the outer doors, Josh collapsed at the nearest cafeteria table. Pink followed shortly after, pulling xyr helmet off to reveal xyr scarred face, marred by exhaustion. Herman— _White_ stayed by the window, watching Cyan’s corpse drift out into the starry yonder.

“There,” he said finally, still staring outside. “Exploded into chunks, just like Purple.” 

Pink winced. White stomped over to the table. Josh removed her helmet and untied her ponytail, letting her locs fall around her face. “Then that’s all,” she said, exhausted and relieved and sickened all at once.

Pink raised xyr tablet briefly, showing “0 E.T. LIFEFORMS DETECTED.’ “That’s all,” xe said, laying xyr head on folded arms.

White finally took off his helmet, meeting Josh’s gaze with a dark, dead-eyed glance. “That’s all,” he echoed.

There was a long, cold silence. Pink - what was xyr real name? Carson? Cesar? - buried xyr face in xyr arms and appeared to doze off. Josh leaned against Herman’s side, resting her head on his shoulder. He didn’t even stir. 

“Want anything to eat?” he asked finally, rubbing a hand at his eyes. He looked as tired as Pink. Josh supposed she probably did, too.

“Might as well,” she said, hesitant to even speak. “And then I’ll have to head down to engines.”

“Engines?” Pink mumbled, lifting xyr head a little. “I’m meant to manage the engines.”

“You’d be of more use towards general maintenance, Casey,” Herman said. ( _Casey!_ ) “Josh should be able to handle the reactor, too.”

Casey sighed, low and long. “Very well,” xe said. Xe seemed more awake. “And you?”

Herman took on a resolute frown. “I’ll be monitoring the ship’s autopilot and keeping watch for any outboard threats. It seems an appropriate job for the acting captain. I will still preside over Medbay, assuming…” he faltered, hard. “Assuming no further emergencies.”

Josh leaned into him a little and hoped that was reassuring.

“We can only do the best we can with what we have,” Casey said, supportive in xyr own way. “How about that meal, hm?” Xe stood, waving a hand at Herman when he tried to accompany xem. “If I’m being assigned to mere maintenance, it’s really only fair.”

Herman’s frown gradually lessened. “Thank you.”

Casey did a mock salute before exiting into the kitchen.

“Do you think xe’ll make something from scratch, or synth?” Josh asked. The food synthesizers offered greater variety in theory, but tended to underwhelm on flavor.

“We’ll see,” Herman said. Stoic as ever. Josh was so, so thankful he was still with her; thankful beyond the fact that he was a staunch and capable leader. She leaned into him again, and he rested his head on her shoulder again. She felt his breath catch.

“You okay?”

He didn’t answer for a long moment, and when he did his voice was strained. “Fine. Glad this is over.”

The words did little to assuage Josh’s worries, and she turned, straddling the seat so she could face him head-on. “Don’t lie to me,” she growled, way more aggressive than she’d intended to be. Herman angled himself away, not quite flinching but certainly avoiding her gaze. _Definitely_ lying. “Don’t,” she repeated, softer.

Herman’s eyes were closed, his face blank. Finally, he flexed his jaw and huffed. “Harvey caught me in the ribs on the way out. Hurts a bit.”

“Can I look?”

“...Yes.” Herman unclasped his harness and helped Josh unfasten the Velcro and unzip the many-layered suit. “I don’t think it’s serious.”

“Even so,” Josh said, unzipping Herman’s plain, white jumpsuit. “It’s not something to hi— oh, _ouch_.” Harvey’s blow had somehow broken skin. A smear of scarlet framed a shallow scrape. Josh couldn’t help but think of _all_ of the blood that had recently been spilled.

“Hm?— Ah.” Herman pushed Josh’s hands away, and she couldn’t think to resist. Had it really only taken a single shift— less than 24 hours— to lose _six_ crewmates? To say nothing of Lime, Purple, and Cyan... 

“—Friction burn, I suppose,” Herman was saying. “Personally I’m more bothered by the bruised ribs, but…” Herman paused, gently angling Josh’s chin so she was looking at his face instead of his chest. “Here, Josh, I’m alright. The blood didn’t even go through my jumpsuit.”

Josh held her eyes closed, tense, then let out a slow breath. “I know. I’m sorry. I—”

“No, don’t be.” Herman tugged off his gloves and fumbled with his jumpsuit pockets, pulling out an alcohol swab and some plasters. It only took two to cover the entirety of the damage, and Josh suddenly felt very stupid for overreacting.

“I— No, I’m— really, I’m—” She started breathing hard and found she couldn’t stop. Everything was too overwhelming; seeing the blood, even just that paltry smear—

“Josh,” Herman said. That was all it took for her to collapse. Falling against him, Josh held on for dear life, thoughts oppressively blank like her mind couldn’t handle anything but breathing. Herman raised his ungloved hands to cradle her head, holding her close. Herman’s hands were as big as the rest of him, and strong from years of use both in medicine and electrical work. Josh could feel the warmth of those hands even through her brain fog, and she knew Herman would let her sit as long as she needed to for it to fade. Josh felt safe held like this. For the first time since Orange’s murder, she felt safe.

Then she remembered _how_ Orange had been killed, and she quickly pulled Herman’s arms down, around her torso. “Sorry,” she said. “Thank you.”

“I’m sorry about Black,” Herman said. His dark eyes bored into her. “If we hadn’t hesitated, we could have…”

Oh, god. “We didn’t know then what we knew today,” she said. “She didn’t die in vain.”

“No.” Herman shook his head in agreement. 

Josh closed her eyes again, trying not to think too much about Cyan’s final murderous act. “Her name was Mal, you know.”

“I did.”

“Sorry— I didn’t mean to imply you’d forgotten. I’m just— saying it.” A short, humorless laugh forced up from her throat. “I forgot Casey’s name. I don’t think it’s wrong.”

“Not at all. I suspect the higher-ups prefer us to maintain some anonymity.”

“ _Why?_ That makes for such an awkward environment onboard— doesn’t it?”

She felt Herman shrug, the motion pushing her shoulders slightly. “It was only a theory,” he said, and was silent for several seconds. “I was acquainted with Mal, though. She visited Irudine in Medbay often.”

“Oh, were they—?”

“Mm.”

“Thule too, then?”

“And Daniel— Orange.”

Josh sighed. Knowing that all four of them were dead was comforting, in a weird, morbid way. She wondered if Mal had been relieved. If she’d expected to see her partners again. If, perhaps, she actually did see them.

* * *

Daniel and Thule (Yellow) had been discovered dead at around the same time— the first to die. Blue, the ship’s commander, had initiated emergency protocols, including activating the ship’s ELD (Extraterrestrial Lifeform Detector), but had been killed before they could see most of their orders go into action. 

With Blue and Yellow dead, the role of acting captain had fallen on the ship’s medic, Irudine. Shrewd but ill-prepared for command, and struggling with a monumental grief besides, they had orchestrated the use of the ship’s scanner in an attempt to isolate the infested by assessing each crewmate’s anatomy. It would have been a good plan— if only they hadn’t chosen Lime as the first subject, and if only they had brought in more than one person at a time.

Actually, Herman had been the one to stumble onto the grisly scene, next in line for scanning. He’d identified the body by suit color and context. There was very little else left. Josh remembered how haunted he’d looked. “Could hardly see any green through all the blood,” he’d told the remaining crew.

The timing of the incident in Medbay had sealed Lime’s fate, and Herman maintained order over the course of a brutal meeting. It wasn’t until after Lime had been jettisoned from the airlock that everyone realized Brown had been conspicuously absent.

After a mad dash to the ship’s eerie electrical housing, all that was left to witness was Brown’s companion robot, busily tidying up their corpse. Even more disturbing (and that was saying a lot) Cyan’s two spawnlings were gone from their bunks— nothing left but bloodstains. Josh shuddered now to think of it— had it been Lime? Purple? Or had Cyan himself devoured his own spawnlings, in an attempt to deflect suspicion? She remembered how distraught Cyan had been at the discovery. Had it all been an act? She wished there was some way to know.

Tension had been at a peak from that point on, but the next meeting didn’t occur based on any new deaths. Josh had called it via the emergency comms system - while monitoring the ship’s cameras, she’d seen Purple enter the navigation deck through its only entrance, then exit the cafeteria near the Medbay. 

Purple had claimed to have been cleaning the vents, but that was bullshit and everyone knew it. The vent filters were accessible by the hallways. Like Casey had said: “It would’ve almost been believable if you said you had been doing it for fun.”

At that point, Josh hadn’t been certain who the final impostor was. But not long after Purple’s expulsion, Herman approached her as “the only one he could trust,” took her to Medbay, and subjected himself to a scan so Josh could verify his humanity for herself. From then on, Herman faithfully checked up on her between managing the ship’s wiring, steering, and medical bay. It was on one of these excursions that he happened upon Cyan leaving the communications room— wherein lay the shredded remains of Mal and her spawnling. Josh had seen his urgent sprint to the emergency Comms; the strange mix of fear and resolution in his eyes.

She’d seen Cyan in the background, too. Frowning coldly. Or, now that she thought about it… could it have been _sadly_? Thinking of Mal’s partners, could Cyan’s last murder have been within some twisted framework of _mercy_?

“Herman?” she asked. Casey _must_ be properly cooking, she thought, for it to be taking this long.

“Hm?”

“Did Cyan… react, when you found him?”

Herman seemed to deflate, brow furrowing, troubled. “He… stopped. And he looked at me. His helmet was off. Blood on his chin.”

“Did he look—”

“Guilty? I don’t know. He just looked at me.” He shifted in place, uncomfortable but hardly showing it. “I wish— I do wish it hadn’t been him.”

Oh, god. Josh remembered. Herman and Cyan had trained together, before the mission. Long before. Had they been old friends? “Herman— god, I’m _sorry_.”

“I wish I could have questioned him,” he said calmly, betraying no deeper emotion. “Found out which ones he killed.”

 _Find out whether he really ate his own spawnlings_ , Josh thought with disgust.

“I’m going to miss him.”

Josh leaned. They sat in a prolonged moment of silence, mourning crew and impostor alike.

At length, Casey pulled a food trolley into the caf. “Sorry that took so long. I thought I might as well make a sizable meal.”

“We’ve earned it,” Herman said quietly.

* * *

After dinner, Josh and Casey followed Herman to Medbay for complete scans. As the ALD report had implied, none of them were being parasitized. With each scan, the Medicomputer, colloquially referred to as Ignaz, assigned a PTSD diagnosis to each of them. Herman was understandably irritated by the third repetition. “Thank you, Ignaz; we were aware,”

“—two bruised ribs,” the computer concluded. “Have an excellent shift.”

“Ignaz, give me one of those personal emergency monitors,” Casey requested. “I don’t think I’ll… _do_ anything, but I’ve also never been under this amount of stress before.”

Herman regarded xem with reserved sympathy and just a sliver of concern. Casey shrugged, clipping the monitor to the inside of xyr collar, where it would trigger a minor alert if xe attempted any self-harm. “I’m going to search the communications room and the cargo hold for spare parts,” xe said. “I’ll see if I can hash some walkie-talkies so we can talk whenever we like, not confined to in-person or use of the emergency messaging system. You two should sleep.”

“And you?” Herman asked. Josh was concerned, too. Casey operated on a strict timetable, even down to sleeping and mealtimes. She was pretty sure xe had a slot on xyr schedule for going to the bathroom.

Casey looked away. “Building things calms me down,” xe said. “I’ll go to bed soon.”

“Careful around communications,” Herman said. “Brown— _Simon’s_ cleanup bot is slow by itself, so it might still be… a scene.”

Casey sighed. “Yes. I’ll be careful. Good night.”

“Night, Case,” Josh said. Xe frowned a little at the nickname, then shook xyr head, dismissive, as xe turned away.

* * *

Josh followed Herman as he took the long way to the bunks, stopping in the administration room to give the map a pass. “Looks like Casey made it to Comms already,” he remarked, carefully-guarded relief in his voice. “...Do you suppose we ought to sleep in shifts?”

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Josh said, a little too quickly. “I mean— the alarms will wake us up if anything goes wrong.”

“...True enough,” Herman said. He regarded her a moment. “Would you feel safer if we slept in the same room.” It wasn’t really a question. 

Josh nodded vehemently. “God, yes, _please_. Everything is so— so—”

“Fucked.”

“ _Fucked!_ ”

Herman chuckled a little, climbing the ladder to upper decks. “I hope you don’t mind if I don’t cuddle.”

She hadn’t even wanted that until he mentioned it, and now— well, _now_ she wanted it, and her chest ached for what she could’ve had. But she just nodded. “Of course.”

“Sometimes I thrash in my sleep,” Herman continued. “I wouldn’t want to push you out of bed.” He sounded genuinely apologetic, and when Josh stepped off the ladder and looked at him, he had a regretful expression. 

She took a deep breath. “Is… that the only thing stopping you?”

Herman turned away, speeding up a little as they walked past the showers and rec room. “I also don’t like my shoulders touched,” he muttered. “But I guess it’s up to you.”

Josh felt a wave of guilt. She, Casey, and Herman had narrowly escaped an attempted takeover with their _lives_ , and she was trying to _flirt_? She slowed in her walk, and hesitated morosely in the doorway to A-bunks— _Wait._ “A-bunks? Uh—”

Herman had already removed his helmet and gloves, and was working on his boots. “Oh— oh, um, apologies; I can go to B with you if you’d rather—”

“No, it’s okay— I think. As long as it’s _your_ bed.”

Herman scowled, and his voice took on a sarcastic edge. “No, I was thinking we’d sleep in the beds of our late crewmates.” He huffed, turning away to step out of his suit.

Josh felt awful. Worse still because he’d completely misinterpreted her intentions, which she’d already been doubting. “No, that wasn’t— I meant I would be— I would be happy to share _your_ bed _with_ _you_. Why would I— why would you think _that_ was what I meant? What the _fuck_ —?”

And Herman was there, fast as flash, unclasping her helmet and silently pressing their foreheads together. He waited for Josh’s breathing to steady.

“I’m sorry. Clearly I’m… distraught. Of course that wasn’t what you meant. We’re all very shaken. Come to bed.” He unzipped one of her gloves and, quite without display, covered her hand with his own.

Josh practically dissolved.

“That’s it,” Herman said, uncharacteristically soft. “Let me help.” He unzipped her other glove and her suit, then lifted her out of it with a powerful yet tender might. He carried her the few steps to the bed, and Josh thought she might just melt away.

She felt more than saw him walking away, and grumbled a little, but he soon returned and lifted her head to swap pillows: he’d brought hers in from B-bunks, with the satin pillowcase. A tiny gesture, but right then it meant so much. And when he climbed over her to lie down right beside...

“Herman,” Josh hummed, reaching for— not his shoulders. Reaching for his chest.

Dimly, she saw him smile, a faint but dazzling flicker. “I’ve got you,” he said. Josh could feel the low rumble of his voice. She hadn’t expected to get to sleep so easily, given all that had happened. But one of Herman’s heavy arms was draped over her like a security blanket, and her belly was full, and it finally felt like this entire morbid business was over, and Josh was out in minutes.

* * *

“—come see me in Comms. Again: Josh, if you’re awake, please come see me in Comms.” The heady crackle of the ship’s intercom buzzed Josh awake far too early. With an exaggerated grumble, she lifted her head. Herman had rolled away from her in his sleep, but she didn’t take it personally. With each breath, his chest moved gently, a reassuring rhythm. His white-clothed back rose above the sheets like a muscular plateau— wait. Casey was still paging her. Yawning, she dragged herself over to the intercom panel and hit the push-to-talk button.

“ _What_ is it, Case.”

A pause for the words to carry. “I just need you to come down here,” xe said. “Please.”

“Why isn’t there an alarm?”

“It’s not exactly an emergency,” xe said. “So I disabled the e-com alarms.”

“How’d you figure that out?” Josh remembered, briefly, Brown ( _Simon, damn it_ ) complaining about the comms alarm way back before launch. He’d said it was “restrictive”— no, he’d said it was “ _fucking_ restrictive.”

“I jimmied it,” Casey said flatly. “That has no bearing on what I need you for.”

Josh was beginning to get a feel for Casey beyond “strict schedule, never shirks.” Xe was a no-nonsense sort, but rarely did xyr speech convey rudeness (in contrast to, say, Herman, whose blunt speech could easily be mistaken for hostility). And xe was apparently a fantastic cook. Josh really didn’t— _hadn’t—_ known anyone on board before she’d gotten to know Herman, and even that had been incredibly recent. With revulsion, she considered the fact that she’d never have gotten this close to Herman without the entire bloody massacre.

Wincing a little at the thought, Josh said, “On my way. Um, should I bring Herman?”

There was a long pause. “I would prefer if you didn’t, but it’s your call.” Then, muffled as if xe was facing away: “Is that fair?”

Josh looked over to Herman, sound asleep. “Okay,” she said quietly. “Heading there now.”

Before leaving A-bunks, she adjusted the blanket around Herman’s midsection, careful not to brush his shoulders by accident. She lightly ran her fingers over his close-cropped black hair. He lost his hard edges when he was at rest.

Josh had the same creeping thought that it was only through luck that she and Herman had lived. Luck alone let her see him like this, see him sleeping for the first time. Unknown and malicious factors had aligned for this, somehow.

She shivered, and rushed to the ladder, thinking once again of how Mal might’ve felt before and during her death. It was gruesome even to _consider_ a ‘lucky’ bent to the whole business— but Josh _felt_ lucky. Lucky to have lived, and lucky to be with Herman (and Casey, who she was slowly beginning to trust, though this whole ‘meet me in Comms, alone, and no, I won’t give you any context’ thing _did_ hamper that).

Casey was leaning back in the office chair when Josh arrived, and swiveled to greet her. “I apologize for being so… cagey, over the intercom.”

 _Get on with it_ , Josh thought, trepidation giving way to mild annoyance. “So what’s this about.”

“Well…” Xe huffed and shook xyr head a bit and rocked the chair from side to side. The nervous gestures were not at all something Josh had expected from the reserved engineer, and she took a worried half-step back. “Well… Herman had reported two bodies, Mal _and_ her ward…” xe began. 

Josh could have fallen over at the mere implication. From behind the mishmash of consoles and counters, she saw a little black-gloved hand appear. “ _Fuck_ ,” she said, then slapped her hand over her mouth. “Um— I mean—”

The spawnling chuckled a little, weak with emotion and garbled through a mouth not fully developed. “Yeah,” it said, only a little slurred, stepping fully into view. “Hello.”

Josh knew next-to-nothing about Mal’s spawnling. It was clearly much older than both of Harvey’s, but apart from that? Total mystery. Josh was shocked that it could speak. She had assumed it was too young— it still had several inches to go before it reached Mal’s height. Its voice sounded different, too, which was not at all usual. It was lower in pitch, and had a familiar accent Josh couldn’t quite place.

Casey’s eye darted between Josh and the spawnling with quiet concern.

“Um, I’m Josh—”

“Yeah. I know,” the spawnling said. Either it hadn’t mastered intonation yet, or it was just a flat sort of person. “I’m Corviser.” [cor-vee-SAY]

“Um. Hello.” Josh was quite literally sweating under the spawnling’s visor-shrouded gaze. _She_ certainly didn’t want to address the obvious, terrible fact that Corviser had, with 100% absolute certainty, witnessed the entirety of Mal’s ( _brutal_ ) death.

“I found them hiding in here,” Casey explained, sounding almost apologetic. “I told them Cyan had been ejected.”

“I din’ want White to see me yet,” Corviser said. “I knew it would make ’im upset. I figured you’d be okay, though, Red. Wha’s your name?”

“Josh,” she stammered, still thoroughly taken aback. They _really_ didn’t sound like Mal. She could _almost_ place it—

“Josh. An’ you’re Casey,” they said, “And White is… Herman.”

Casey nodded in confirmation. God, their _voice_! It sounded like—!

The spawnling reached up to unclasp their helmet, moving slowly. Likely this was the first time they had ever removed their own helmet by themself. The thought made Josh’s face scrunch up. The poor thing.

The tinted visor finally lifted to reveal the soft, rubbery features of a not-quite-ready clone. They had thick, dark hair that poked outwards past their ears. Their eyes were a light, calculating brown, and their lips had a shrewd pout.

In other words— apart from that spawnling look, like they’d been coated in jelly— Corviser was a perfect replication of the ship’s dead medic.

“Oh. God.”

Corviser seemed to understand where Josh was coming from with that brief exclamation, nodding as the light caught their skin with a strange glistening quality. “I know you were ‘specting me to look different,” they said. “And it’s not… _usual_ for clones to follow someone diff’rent from their source. But I never really wan’ed to be a doctor, an’ Irudine said…” They paused, looking down, suddenly seeming _very_ small. “Said I’d be better off w’ Mal doin’ somethin’ I liked. I guess… guess they were right.”

Josh sucked in a breath. “No, god, Corviser, no. I’m sorry. I’m so _sorry._ ”

“‘S not your fault,” they mumbled, voice rough. “Look, I know this is a awful situation, and I know you din’ ask for any of this, but, Red— _Josh_. Can I… can I trail you ‘round?” 

Josh was too overcome to speak, and Corviser, bless them, seemed to take it as reluctance, spreading their arms and raising their voice as they begged: “It wouldn’ be for long, jus’ a few months while I finish cookin’— Or I could try an’ switch between you an’ Casey, or all three of you— or—”

“No— I mean— _yes_ , yes, Corviser, you can follow me. Of course you can.” Josh sniffled, not quite crying.

The spawnling stopped pleading and blinked at her numbly. “Oh,” they said softly, tears in their eyes. “Thank you.” They replaced their helmet and hesitantly, like a young deer taking its first steps, tiptoed their way to Josh’s side. “Thank you,” they whispered again. Josh took their hand without another word.

Casey, who had been rummaging through drawers again, presumably to avoid looking awkward ( _didn't quite manage that one_ ), noticed the silence after a few moments and swiveled to face them. “I, um, did find some portable communications devices. Here.” Xe handed Josh three black-and-white walkie-talkies. “For you, Herman, and Corviser.”

She handed one off to the spawnling, who dutifully clipped it to their suit harness.

“I’ll follow you back to bunks, I suppose,” xe said, scratching a particularly scarred area on their cheek. “If that’s alright by you.”

Josh nodded. “Come along, Corviser,” she said, hoping she sounded encouraging and not patronizing. The spawnling tightened their grip on her hand, so she assumed she was doing alright. “Do you need to eat before we go?”

They shook their head. “I still have th’ support matrix in my suit,” they said. “It’ll prolly deactivate in a month ‘r so.” Josh had no clue what that meant, but decided to take them at their word.

The group headed back through the hallway to the ladder, but at the base of it, Corviser suddenly stopped.

“You alright?” Josh squeezed their hand, but they pulled away.

“...’M scared of Herman seein’ me,” they confessed, voice a mushy whisper. “He knew my parents.”

“It’ll be alright,” Josh said, “I promise. I’ll keep you safe. He won’t be upset. Or—” He _might_ be upset; she had no idea. Hadn’t even known the degree of closeness he’d apparently had with Mal and Irudine. “He won’t be upset with you.”

Corviser looked up at her, shivering visibly even through their suit. “Okay,” they breathed unevenly, taking her hand again for a moment before hauling themself up the ladder. Josh followed carefully in case they fell. They didn’t. The poor thing must have had to grow up very quickly within the past few hours, Josh thought, shoulders heavy with the notion.

Josh asked Casey to help her move her cot from B-bunks to A, which xe did without complaint, retreating to C-bunks immediately after. Josh arranged everything as neatly as she could for the little spawnling, even offering it extra blankets from the other empty beds (they declined, but they did walk quietly to Irudine’s empty bunk, tenderly select their abandoned pillow, and carry it to bed with them).

Josh leaned down to pull them into her arms, and they pushed their face into the crook of her neck. “We’ll all take care of you, little one,” she said softly. “You let us know what you need.”

Corviser nodded, pressed against her shoulder, before withdrawing and curling up in a tiny ball around Irudine’s pillow in a little nest of blanket folds. “G’night,” they mumbled.

“Goodnight,” Josh whispered back, tucking herself against Herman’s broad back and breathing in his scent. She was asleep within minutes.

* * *

Josh woke still feeling tired, rolling over to find that the wall clock indicated she’d only been asleep for a few hours. She groaned and pushed her head against Herman’s back, ignoring the shaking and whimpering.

Wait. 

She shot up, one hand protectively draped over Herman’s side, scanning the room. Corviser was snoring softly, a still mound on Josh’s cot, and nothing around them seemed out of place. Good. Josh relaxed her guard and turned her attention to what was quite obviously a nightmare.

“Herman,” she whispered, smoothing her hands over his lower back and sides, then his hair, then his upper arms. “I’m here. We’re safe. It’s alright.”

Herman’s brow was furrowed, and Josh could see a sheen of sweat on his skin as her eyes adjusted. “Jjj,” he mumbled, sounding more like ‘zzsh’ in his slurred sleep-speech.

“That’s right, I’m here. I’m here.” She continued rubbing his back. He twitched, snorted, and then suddenly he was _on top of her_ , one arm on her neck— not rough, but very obviously defensive. “Fuck! Herman! It’s me, it’s Josh; you’re _dreaming_ , _wake up_!” Dimly she saw Corviser _commando-roll (holy shit!)_ off their bed and out of sight. “Herman, please—” It was too dark to make much out but she could tell his eyes were open; if he’d just _register_ what he was _seeing_ …

And then it was over; he shoved off of her and slammed his back into the wall beside the bed. “J-Josh.” He had his hands over his face. “Fuck.”

“I’m sorry—”

“No. No.” Shaking his head vigorously, he offered out his arms and Josh fell into them. She couldn’t tell if he was trembling, or if she was, or both. “I’m— _sorry. Josh._ ” He pulled her closer, both arms around her like she was all he had to hold onto. “You’re safe. I— _we’re_ safe. We’re safe.” He continued murmuring it, over and over, before finally just shoving his head into her shoulder, struggling to catch his breath.

For Josh, the panic of being suddenly pinned had worn off quickly, but she was still dazed. It was bizarre to see big, bulky Herman curled up in as small a ball as he could muster; it was wrong. Or... was it actually wrong that Josh _wasn’t_ broken up about all of this? She’d been thinking about it since finding Corviser in Comms: she wasn’t… _grieving_. When she thought of Mal or Simon, the only dead she’d ever interacted with on a deeper level than ‘coworkers,’ she just felt… empty. She couldn’t even… couldn’t even…

Josh’s stomach lurched. She was trying to remember an interaction, _any_ specific interaction, she’d had with Mal _or_ Simon. But there was nothing there, it was walled-off somehow; she couldn’t _get to it_. The emptiness was so terrifying she had to mentally withdraw from it, holding Herman tighter just for something else to concentrate on.

 _This_ **_is_ ** _grief_ , she thought suddenly. It would have been comforting if it wasn’t so confusing and— and scary. Perhaps she was holding Herman for the same reason he was holding her: for something to feel, in the numbness of despair. She sighed into his neck, hoping the placement of her head near his shoulder wasn’t uncomfortable for him. From behind her, she heard Corviser return to their cot, its legs creaking with the movement.

Herman looked up.

 _Shit_. Josh turned quickly and found Corviser sitting up on their knees, their eyes staring over her head, reflecting the starlight coming in from the bunks’ small window.

“ _Corviser,_ ” Herman forced out through clenched teeth. He stood up, and Josh stood with him, one hand on his chest as if it would do anything to hold him back. “You— you’re _alive_.”

Corviser whimpered. Josh just barely heard them say, “ _I’m sorry_.” She let her hand fall to her side. “Herman, I’m _sorry._ ”

Herman reached for them tentatively. “Why, Corv?” he rasped. “Why are you sorry?”

Corviser stiffened; they squeezed their eyes shut and set their jaw like they were waiting to be punished. “‘Cause I didn’t die,” they said, balling their hands into fists.

Josh practically dove for them, but Herman got there first, scooping them into his arms in a single, fluid motion. “No, Corv,” he assured them, rocking them back and forth like a mournful dance. “Don’t say that; don’t say that; I’m so glad you’re here. Little thing. You must have been so frightened.”

Josh had never seen Herman like this. Even earlier, when he’d tucked her into bed, he’d been reserved— cautious. Here he was tender and _open_ , more open than she’d known was possible. She had a sense, too, that this moment wasn’t really _for_ her. She watched numbly as if the two of them were in an old film, flat on a screen, instead of real and standing in the same room.

Corviser’s voice was thick with tears. “I was s-scared after they got Thule and Dansy. An’ then— Deen, an’ then— _Mal_ —!”

“I know,” Herman whispered, “I know, Corviser. We’re going to look after you.”

“I thought you would be mad— ‘cause I’m a _clone_ — an’ I look _jus’ like Irudine—_ an’— Mal told me…” they dropped their voice to a whisper too quiet for Josh to make out, but she clearly saw Herman freeze minutely in his rocking, resuming much more weakly.

“...I would never take that out on you,” he said finally. “Little Corviser. You’ve been through as much as anyone. I’m going to protect you. Alright? I’m going to keep you safe.”

“Mmkay,” Corviser mumbled into Herman’s broad chest. “I don’ wanna be alone.”

“Shh-shh-shh.” Herman sat down on Josh’s cot with the spawnling on his lap. “Let’s get that outer suit off and bundle you up. Josh, could you turn on a light? There are tubes that need to be—” he looked over at her, frowning. “Have you ever helped handle spawnlings?”

Josh shook her head, still mesmerized by the scene. Finding her voice: “Uh, no, I, uh, I haven’t.” When had _he_? “What do you need to… do?” She hit the nearest wall light and moved closer, curious.

Herman was unzipping Corviser’s outer suit to reveal a padded black jumpsuit with a zippered front pocket. Several thin tubes and wires stretched from a small unzipped portion to Corviser’s outer suit. “They make it very simple these days,” he said. “Corviser, how many cycles are you?”

“One-point-three,” they answered promptly. “My birthday is 03/30.”

“So,” Herman said to Josh, “That makes them roughly the equivalent of sixteen years old by size, and thirteen years old by neurodevelopment.”

“I know _that,_ ” Josh said, mildly put out. “I was a spawnling myself.”

“Oh.” Herman raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t know that. My apologies for assuming. But you don’t know about the support matrix?”

“I wasn’t raised with one,” Josh said carefully.

Herman nodded, taking it in stride, thank god. He was detaching the tubes from Corviser’s outer suit, inserting them into the jumpsuit pocket they protruded from, which Josh could see was full of ports and plugs and valves, all color-coded, some with white lettering or symbols denoting their function. She looked away after only a moment; the whole thing took her back to a weird, uncomfortable place. “A clone at this age can spend up to about… oh, a week or so, outside of their support matrix, which is just a simple system that helps perform simple bodily functions more efficiently, to aid in the rapid growth.”

“Oh,” Josh said, “like gel stasis.”

Herman balked, almost dropping the last tube as he inserted it into one of the valves. “ _Gel stasis_?” Josh cringed. “That’s _archaic_.” Herman turned to stare at her, saw how upset his tone had made her, and promptly shut his mouth. “I mean— I’m so sorry.” He cleared his throat and tried again, picking up steam as he continued. “Yes, it’s functionally similar to gel stasis, only vastly more streamlined and efficient. Most importantly, due to its allowance of spawnling mobility, there’s no need for either artificial education or post-stasis manual exercise.”

Josh barely held back another wince. Okay, so, clearly Herman viewed the way she’d been raised as some kind of torture. Which she didn’t exactly _disagree_ with, but…

Corviser appeared for all the world to be totally engrossed. Herman had zipped up their front pocket and helped them out of the rest of their outer suit during his lecture, and was cradling them in his arms again. Josh just hoped they didn’t ask any questions. She didn’t want to hear about it.

“Right,” Herman said softly to the child in his arms. “May I tuck you in?” Again Josh was struck by how gentle he was. Despite how the clone discussion had risen her hackles, she found herself smiling at the big man, framed tenderly with starlight, as he wrapped the blanket around Corviser and their pillows. “If you need me for anything— _anything_ — you wake me. And that’s an order.”

“Aye,” Corviser said from their nest. Josh thought she detected a smile in their voice. She tiptoed over to Herman and took hold of his arm. He laid his free hand over hers, sighing a little. Not a sad sigh, not exactly, but certainly tinted with a grief bigger than he let on. Josh didn’t say anything. There were things she didn’t talk about; Herman was entitled to his share of silence.

He kissed her on the top of her forehead and whispered, “Come to bed?” He was smiling, but it didn’t reach his eyes. Josh gave him an empty smile in return. He nodded like she’d told him something important.

This time, he wrapped himself around her. He gave off the perfect amount of warmth. Even still, it took a long time for Josh to fall asleep. Her brain kept wandering back to vats and straps and hot, glaring beams of light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> today's moral: first process the extremely traumatic events of the last 24 hours, _THEN_ flirt with the big cute electrician/doctor man.
> 
> ok now read [my boyfriend's fic!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26648053) there are two overlapping characters, so that's fun.


	2. The Machine

A day passed on the ghost ship, then a week, then nearly a month. Josh found the shifts blurred together just as much and just as little as before. The walkie-talkies were her one saving grace— without them, she might have just faded away into the arrhythmic beeps and whistles of the reactor’s monitors, and the slow, ungrounded rumble of both engines. 

Casey paged the others a _lot._ Josh didn’t really register the frequency at first— time passed differently in engines. Slower. Thicker. But one day at breakfast— one of those wonderful, fleeting times where everyone could see each other with their helmets off— Herman brought it up over their synthed eggs (and real hash browns).

“Case,” he said, the nickname having become so commonplace that even Corviser occasionally used it, “Why is it that you call us _every_ hour, _on_ the hour?” His tone was even, easily mistaken for annoyed, but Josh could tell that he was amused by the way his eyebrow quirked. She’d learned a lot about him in the time elapsed since the killings, and he’d learned a lot about her. 

Casey shrugged xyr pink-clad shoulders. “Gets lonely,” xe said. Casey hadn’t opened up to Herman and Josh the way they had opened up to each other, though Corviser spoke very highly of xem, and followed xem around the ship most shifts. They were seated next to xem right now, but didn’t seem interested in the conversation.

“That’s fair,” Josh said. “I hadn’t noticed the, uh, precision? But I don’t mind it.” She hummed around her fork. “Probably keeps us all stable.”

Herman snorted almost imperceptibly. “Probably,” he said.

“I can call less frequently if you like,” Casey said. “Every hour-and-a-half; two hours…”

“No, no; it’s fine, Casey,” Herman said. “It’s good to check in.”

“That’s part of it, too,” xe said. “Making sure you’re both still here.”

Herman regarded xem somberly, forkful of potatoes halfway to his mouth. “...Thanks,” he finally stammered, turning to look at xem more seriously. “Thank you. I appreciate that.”

Casey shrugged again. “It’s more for me than it is for you.”

“No, it isn’t,” Josh said with conviction. “It’s functionally equivalent. It doesn’t matter who it’s ‘for;’ you’re looking out for us.” She looked at Herman to see him nodding along in agreement.

“And it’s nice,” he added. “It’s always interesting, the things you share from storage.”

It was true; Casey dug up some _weird_ stuff from the annals of the ship. Just the other day xe’d discovered an entire android shell, complete with its own beige suit. Regrettably, xe _hadn’t_ found a compatible AI core to bring the thing to life. Still, it was a fascinating find, a relic from a bolder, brighter era in spaceflight.

There weren’t many sources of true entertainment on the Skeld. Every 72 hours, MIRA broadcasted a 35-minute-long installment of their unserialized, unmemorable space radio drama to any comms system within range, but Josh found them depressing and dull. She knew Corviser liked them, though, often regaling her and Herman with the latest plots. The last one had been about the nondistinct crewmates of the Blithy fending off a new species of spacefish that could ‘swim’ through electrical current, wreaking havoc on the ship. 

Eight shifts ago, Herman had decided to look through the closets in nav. Before that, he’d scarcely entered the room: head in at ‘daybreak,’ chart the course for that shift, check the instruments, and leave; repeat every ‘evening.’ But some switch flipped, and he asked Josh to come along, saying he’d rather not do it alone.

“It feels like an invasion of privacy,” he confessed, scrolling numbers on the combination lock to the left closet. “If I bring you, it reads more like official business.”

Josh hadn’t known what to say to that, so she just nodded. Going through Harvey’s belongings was a very personal thing for Herman, and she didn’t want to accidentally impose guilt or embarrassment.

As he sorted through what was mostly pictures and drawings and relics of the planet Harvey had apparently grown up on, Herman talked. It wasn’t as scripted as his usual speech, and he didn’t sound nearly as confident saying it, and Josh held on to every word.

“We grew up in the same system,” Herman began. “Purple, too, but I never knew zem. I was synthed on one of the minor space stations. Harvey was born on the planet we orbited.” Josh wasn’t surprised to learn Herman was synthed. That was the standard method of producing new technicians in the Alliance these days— mash some DNA together in a synth-certified lab and you could start training much earlier than you could with a child that had, you know, _guardians_. True birth was a bit rare, at least among astronauts, but from what Josh knew of Harvey she wasn’t all too shocked. He’d been in charge of most meals, _before,_ and his cooking had been rustic and warm, and he’d waved at people in the hallways, and he’d get reprimanded by Blue for never wearing his helmet in the cockpit, and once he’d tripped running through the caf towards the engines and burst out laughing with blood still pouring from his nose. Josh could see what Herman had seen in him, peering over Herman’s shoulder into the overstuffed shelves.

Herman brushed his fingers over the cover of an obviously handwritten cookbook. “We— my training class and I— went planetside for about three months to work with large bodies of water. We were seventeen years old at the time. They told us not to engage with the ‘local low-lifes.’ I assumed they were making a sarcastic joke.” He pulled out a jar of sand labeled with a date, a timestamp, and the words ‘Fugersia beach,’ one of many such jars buried among the piles. “Harvey started trailing me from day one. Not sure why _me_. Maybe because I was the biggest of my class and he wanted the sense of security. He was eighteen, but… you’ve seen him.”

Harvey had been the second-shortest member of the Skeld’s crew, at only 4’11” (Casey was about 4’9”), and Josh could tell he’d never been the brawling type.

“He used me like a plant to access MIRA training indirectly. I told him all my lessons. I don’t think he ever saw it that way— still don’t— and in hindsight I don’t see it that way, either. He wasn’t being disingenuous. He was _nice_ to me. He made small talk; he asked stupid questions. When he first walked up to me— I was collecting samples, alone, on the beach— he said, ‘What’s your name?’ and when I told him, ‘C9427,’ he just laughed at me.” Herman lingered for a long time over a photo of the largest family Josh had ever seen, Harvey right in the middle, smiling with his eyes like always. “He asked if I had a real name. I said no; we didn’t choose designations until graduation. He said maybe he’d figure something out.

“He did a lot of things that I’d never seen anyone do before. I think I was getting as much information from him as he was from me. He took me to meet his father.” Herman smiled at the photo and tapped the face of a wick-thin man with Harvey’s smile. “James. They cooked together. I’d never even fried an egg. James looked at me and said, ‘Well, Harv, this is the ugliest MIRA trainee you’ve brought home yet.’” Herman laughed, the biggest laugh Josh had heard from him in their entire stay on the Skeld. He’d really loved Harvey, she thought. And _she_ loved Herman too much to even be jealous. What was there to envy, anyway? Harvey was dead.

“I was mad at first, when I realized I wasn’t the first MIRA trainee he’d siphoned information from. I insulted him. Called him selfish, I think.” Herman closed the closet door and headed for the one on the other side of nav. “He shook his head at me and took me outside to this shed. And…” Herman frowned. Josh could tell he was finding it more difficult to talk about. “He’d built a flight simulator in there. It wasn’t a masterpiece by any means—” he laughed a little. “It was really a— a piece of shit. Ropes and pulleys. I laughed at it then, too, and he said, ‘I’m not showing you this to _impress_ you.’ He told me how restrictive MIRA was about accepting planetborn trainees in our system, and how he’d applied and been accepted, but been forced to drop out over _registration fees._ I didn’t even know they charged.

“I think it was a lot for me to take in. I didn’t know what to say, so I apologized. I assumed he was trying to get me to feel bad for being part of something he’d been excluded from. But he took me up to the roof of the shed, to lecture me proper. Said he hadn’t been jealous of a synthed trainee since the first class he’d badgered. ‘Think about it,’ he said, ‘You didn’t even know what a beach was. You’d never cooked a meal with another person.’

“I was offended, of course; I didn’t want to think that I’d been missing out on anything. We were of course taught to be very proud of our _elite privilege_. Even so…” Herman sighed. The right closet was full of paper books, piled haphazardly. Some of them were bound with nothing but string. “I managed to swallow my pride, probably because he was sitting right next to me on the roof of the shed and we’d just eaten together and he’d shown me his _abomination_ of a flight sim. And he told me two things.

“He told me, firstly, that he had a plan to prove his mettle as a pilot to MIRA admin in the local system. Secondly—” Herman paused. He moved a stack of books on the lowest shelf, then picked up a long, zippered case. He set it on the fourth shelf, at about Josh’s chest level, and opened it slowly. “Ah,” he said, barely a breath. “I wondered where he was keeping it.”

Josh had never seen a violin in person before. It was smaller than she’d expected. The wood— _wood!—_ really was as shiny as in photos she’d seen. And there was something tender in the way the case was shaped exactly to fit.

Herman’s fingers hovered for a long, long time, almost resting in several places, but ultimately he choked on a breath and closed the case without ever touching the instrument. He replaced the case on the bottom shelf. He put back the stack of books.

“Secondly—” Herman tried again, and choked again. “Secondly—”

“We can take a break,” Josh said, tentatively putting her hand on his back. “You don’t have to do this all at once. We have time.”

“We have time,” Herman echoed dimly, “Yes. We have nothing but time.” He tried to close the closet, but one of the books was poking out at an angle. Grumbling in spite of everything, Herman bent down to move it. “God, he never could keep anything organized—” He froze. Josh couldn’t see well from behind him, but she saw him straighten, slipping the book into his suit pocket as he did so.

He caught her staring and smiled at her, tears in his eyes. “I think I’m allowed something,” he said. “And I’ll arrange to have the violin sent to James.” His face darkened at the thought, but he shook his head, one hand holding the pocket with the book inside. “The second thing Harvey told me was that he’d never trusted a MIRA trainee enough to actually go for it— his infallible plan, that is— until he met me. …I’ll tell you about it some time.” He moved to the navigation console, opening the two wide compartments under the dash to show both were completely full of storage blocks. “There we go,” Herman said, as if this had been what he was after the whole time. “That should be enough music to cross twelve galaxies without a single repeating track.” He’d taken a couple blocks with them when they left, and silently zippered up any further emotional vulnerability.

Since then, the four remaining Skeld crew had had their pick of background noise. Josh wasn’t sure _twelve galaxies_ was accurate, but it was certainly an immense collection. She didn’t have strong preferences, but Herman liked music from the 21st turn, and everything Casey listened to was in the same tempo. Corviser had found six songs they enjoyed, and listened to them on repeat when they got in the mood. Josh started picking blocks at random, playing them loudly over the reactor monitor to drown out the beeping.

It seemed a routine began to settle over the Skeld for the first time in a long time. With it, though, came a sense of suspenseful stagnation— a creeping notion that none of the remaining crewmates were actually processing what had happened. Josh couldn’t shake the idea. Herman’s time started to split into two states: with Josh, or alone in the cockpit. Casey would disappear into storage for hours, even days at a time, often accompanied by Corviser, to Josh’s great concern. When asked, Corviser would simply shrug and say things like, “We were double-checking something,” or, “We needed to work continuously.” They rarely said more than a sentence at a time.

Josh felt the lack of personnel more now than she had initially upon the crewmates’ deaths. It was upsetting, but the truly upsetting thing about it was that Josh didn’t miss any of the _dead_ , she was missing the crewmates who were _alive._ They still ate together, and Casey still phoned in on the hour, but it slowly grew cold and distant. Josh felt like a solitary planetoid, passed only occasionally by the fleeting, lonely comets that were her coworkers. 

At least during offshift, Herman still wrapped around her and shared a murmured conversation until they fell asleep. He agreed that their relationship was tenuous at best, founded initially more on shared trauma than shared interests, but— well, he said it best: “I think I prefer being in a weird, traumatized partnership with _you_ than I would with anyone else.” Sure, there was a level of intimacy neither of them felt comfortable broaching with the other, but neither of them desired that level of intimacy in their current state, anyway. Well— Josh wished he’d _talk_ to her more during shifts, like he used to. God, forget stagnation, it felt like everyone was _regressing._ She was lying to herself if she said she didn’t want everything to go back to the way it was before.

She was even starting to miss Harvey, which felt a little weird at first— was she repressing jealousy?— but she did some heavy personal analysis (to some of the most violent music she’d ever listened to in her life; thanks, Harv) and discovered that, yes, she was jealous, but she was actually jealous of _Herman._ Her survivor’s guilt was being compounded by the knowledge that she’d never gotten to know any of her crewmates the way they’d probably deserved. Seeing the way Herman mourned Harvey made her feel like she wasn’t grieving properly. She wanted the sorrow and loss that he had. 

…It was kind of fucked-up, and she’d been _really_ foggy for the rest of that day, but ultimately she hoped it was a beneficial realization.

Casey and Corviser soon moved their cots into storage. Josh hardly saw either of them anymore. She was at her wits’ end. Shifts bled into shifts. They still had almost ten months to go until they reached the Washington-Black system’s MIRA station. Ten months! She didn’t think she could last even _one_ with this _frigidity_ that permeated the Skeld. She withdrew as much as anyone, spent hours just staring at the reactor monitors or the engine alignment display. She pathed her routes between rooms to have the smallest chance of passing anyone. She responded with less frequency and with fewer words to Casey’s hourly calls. The only person she really _tried_ to interact with was Corviser— but that was proving difficult, as they seemed to spend every goddamn waking hour _stuck_ to Casey’s side. 

So, shifts passed slowly, and Josh felt more and more alone.

* * *

Josh only knew the meal they were eating was lunch because she’d choked a little on a bite of breakfast and Herman had _put one hand on her arm_ to ask if she was alright. She’d probably treasure the memory of physical contact for weeks. 

So she knew it was lunch, and they were all eating silently. Well— Corviser was _sitting_ silently. According to an estimate Herman had made ten shifts ago, their support matrix would be deactivating on its own in about three months. 

“I have something to show you,” Casey said. It was so unexpected that Josh didn’t fully process it at first, just kept mindlessly spooning spinach and mushrooms into her mouth. She could tell Herman had made this meal because the synthed mushrooms were purple. Plus, he had a trademark tendency to undersalt.

Casey cleated xyr throat. “I mean, uh, now. Well— after you’re done eating.”

That registered. Josh dropped her fork carelessly onto her plate. “I’m ready now,” she said quickly. Her speech felt thick from disuse.

“Sure,” Herman said, shoving one last bite into his mouth. “Anything to break routine.”

Casey smiled, _actually_ smiled. God, this was the best shift Josh had had in weeks. “I’ll never understand you,” xe joked flatly. Corviser chuckled a little. Herman smiled. Casey stood up. “Bring your helmets,” xe said. Was this happening? Was this really happening? Had Josh succumbed to some bizarre subtype of radiation poisoning causing her to hallucinate all of this, or were they _actually talking to each other?_ It felt too good to be true.

“You coming, Josh?” Corviser asked in their standard monotone, breaking into her thoughts. While she’d been questioning reality, they and Herman had gotten up. The spawnling offered her their hand. As if in a dream, she slowly took it.

“I know I’ve been very reclusive,” Casey said as they followed xem past the administration office. “Of course, work has been very time-consuming.”

Corviser chuckled as though xe had been telling a joke. They were pulling Josh along a little, clearly excited. Josh and Herman shared a bemused but curious look.

Once they reached storage, Casey ducked out of sight almost immediately. Corviser, grinning like Josh had never seen before, led Josh and Herman between shelves, through piles of boxes and upended tubs of machinery. Josh spotted the tan-suited android shell propped up against what looked like a plain old boulder and draped in loose cords. Someone had put a wide-brimmed brown hat atop its helmet. 

“Okay,” Corviser said, coming to a stop. “This is it.”

In the middle of a manmade clearing amongst the cargo, a tiny, black console sat on the floor, surrounded by tables (and shelves and boxes) stacked with computer parts and whirring instruments. Josh recognized some of them from her experience managing the reactor and engines, but could make no valid configuration out of it all. “What... _is_ this?”

Herman was giving the array an equally critical eye. “Casey, I _know_ that that—” pointing to a metal-and-glass _thing_ that Josh couldn’t begin to guess the purpose of— “isn’t a goddamn MUDCOM.”

Casey looked a little sheepish. “It is,” xe confessed, raising their hands as if to placate him, “but that’s not what it’s for— I assure you. It’s only a monitor, really; _most_ of these are,” gesturing to the outer ring of machinery. “The object of interest here is the centerpiece.”

Herman stepped closer to the circle, frowning at the black box. “ _That?_ ” he asked, incredulous. “Casey, what even _is_ it?”

Casey got a shine to xyr eye and xyr smile that made Josh inexplicably nervous. “That,” xe said with an almost rabid pride, “Is our mode of transportation.”

That explained nothing at all, Josh thought. Herman was apparently just as unenlightened: “Mode of transportation to _what_?” he growled.

“To our rescue mission,” Casey said, now looking almost confused. “I thought you wanted to save everybody.”

At those words, Josh had an idea where this was going, and she suspected Herman did, too, but he must have been aghast at the thought, or perhaps just flat-out unwilling to say it out loud. “What are you talking about.”

“Time travel,” Corviser said, expression unreadable under their helmet. “Obviously.”

“Oh, yes,” Herman snarked over his blatant shock. “Because I’m such an expert on _time machines_. ...How the hell are you _powering_ this thing?”

Casey wrung xyr hands a little. “...I’ve been siphoning power from the reactor,” xe said. “Actually—”

“ _That’s_ why the damn ship was slowing. You _bastard_ ; we’re over 90 hours behind!” Herman towered over Casey, who could only shield xyr machines and bare xyr teeth. He looked over at Josh, fuming. “Did you know about this?”

Now it was her turn to hold up her hands in innocence. “No. I swear. The reactor monitors don’t tell me where the power goes, and the engine power levels haven’t changed.”

Herman squinted at her, but he backed down. “Whatever,” he grunted. His jaw shook with tension.

It took another moment for the energy in the room to settle. Casey eventually spoke up. “Corviser and I have already run tests. I’ve calibrated the destination time. There are _three_ failsafe systems and _two_ backup temporal moments in the event that either the testing or the destination prove faulty. It’s _ready_. We can _go back_.” Xyr eye was absolutely wild, catching the blue-and-yellow glow from the console lights bedazzling xyr creation.

The intent behind all of this suddenly hit Josh full-force. _They could go back_. She swayed a little on her feet. Could they _actually—?_

Next to her, Herman let out a garbled sound between a sob and a gasp. Josh managed to grab him before he toppled over entirely. He leaned on her, one arm over her shoulders and the other hand clinging to her harness.

Casey _really_ faltered then, looking for all the world like xyr hopes and dreams had been dashed against the floor. “I, um,” xe started, then swallowed thickly. “Maybe I should’ve— I can see that this isn’t— what I was, um, envisioning…” by the end of xyr sentence, xyr voice had dropped to a devastated whisper.

Josh’s mind was whirling, but she still felt for xem. Xe clearly had intended this to be a fantastic surprise— well, it _was_ a fantastic surprise, but Casey had probably meant for a different definition of ‘fantastic.’ “It’s— it’s okay, Casey,” she said, struggling to hold up Herman’s bulk. “I think we just need some— some time. To talk this over.”

“...Okay,” Casey said, looking just as crushed as before. Xe shook xyr head and gave Josh an obviously forced smile. “Okay.”

“Josh,” Corviser said. Their helmeted gaze was plaintive, their shoulders heavy like they were holding the weight of the world. “ _Please_.”

“Corviser, we _need time_ ,” Josh managed, probably coming off as scolding without meaning to. At this point, though, she didn’t care. Herman was gasping for breath next to her and all that mattered was getting him out of there and somewhere he could _breathe._ “We’ll be in medbay. Give us at least a half-hour.”

“Aye,” Casey said. As she walked Herman out of storage, she heard xem say to Corviser, “It’ll be alright. Let’s go through one of the _weird_ boxes, okay?” She wondered if it was reasonable of her to feel like her child had been indoctrinated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> today's morals are "don't build a time machine before asking your friends' permission" and "if you're going to do some ruthless self-analysis, you might as well listen to horrorcore."


	3. The Worm

Josh walked Herman all the way to the medbay and helped him sit on one of the beds. His grip on her shoulders was just this side of painful, so she prised him off and linked arms instead. They sat for ages like that with Herman just slowing his breathing, and, Josh suspected, trying not to burst into tears.

“I’m,” he paused to take another breath. “So fucking angry.”

“Me, too,” Josh admitted. She was reluctant to share, but some part of her brain told her Herman would benefit from it.

“I know it was meant to be a surprise,” Herman continued. “And I can even sort of understand _why_ xe wanted it to be a surprise. But— I’m still just— _livid.”_

Josh could only nod. “We could have helped.”

“No, it’s— well, _yes,_ but I’m not mad about that.” Herman sighed. “It feels like xe sprung this on me so that I wouldn’t be able to say no. And _Corviser—”_

“I’m mad about that, too,” Josh agreed, scowling at the floor. “They’re so young. They just want their parents back.”

“It’s dirty,” Herman said, “it’s dirty and it’s _manipulative._ Of _course_ I would kill to bring Harvey back, but…” he trailed off and when he turned to look at Josh his mouth was twisted with a despair so deep it felt like she could drown in it. “What if he wouldn’t want it? He’s _planetborn_ , for _fuck’s_ sake; he doesn’t even like _warp drives._ He says autostabilizers are _cheating_. What would he think if I told him I _time travelled_ to fucking _bring him back from the dead_?!” He was gesticulating, now, abstract motions denoting every category of ‘Harvey-unapproved’ that Casey’s unhinged plan fell into. “And he hates lying even more, and even if he didn’t I wouldn’t be able to lie to him.”

Josh nodded. She trusted Herman’s judgment.

“We’re not supposed to do this, Josh. But I’m _going_ to. I can’t…” he covered his face with his hands, muffling his speech. “I can’t say no to it. Casey’s got me right where xe wants me. I’m fucking timejammed already. _God._

Josh took hold of his hands. “I’m going with you,” she said. 

“I—”

“I know you want me to stay and ‘move on,’ but I’m telling you right now that that’s just wishful thinking.” She leaned in so close that she could make out each of his eyelashes. Her eyes stung. “You haven’t talked to me like this for weeks.”

“I apologize,” he said, frowning. He _had_ to know how woefully inadequate an apology was now. “You… you’re right. I’ve been—”

“Ruminating.”

“No— I mean, _yes_ ,” he said, nodding in resigned agreement, “But that wasn’t what I was going to say. I’ve been thinking about my responsibility as acting captain.”

Josh wasn’t exactly sure what that had to do with anything, but she listened.

“I know it’s just a name, and we’ve not been paying much mind to it. But it’s still… _there_. I have a responsibility for my living crewmates, and _now_ …”

It clicked. “You feel like you have a responsibility to save the dead ones, too,” she said. Herman nodded. Josh wasn’t sure how she felt about this. She was kind of relieved to know that Herman’s driving motivation was rooted, at least partially, in decorum. It made her feel better because that was _her_ main push to go back, too. She didn’t _know_ anyone; she didn’t miss anyone _personally_ (or, she _did_ , but it obviously wasn’t as strong a feeling as anyone else’s). But she understood what it meant to be part of a ship’s crew. At the same time, time travel was dangerous. There was a not insignificant risk of permanent damage to memory function. And there weren’t any conclusive studies on specific effects of time travel on gel-raised clones, which were already suspected to be at higher risk of ‘affected consciousness’ than modern spawnlings. Josh could be signing up for irreparable brain damage.

Herman sighed. “I’m envisioning them all as being stuck on a planet somewhere. _Of course_ I would lead a rescue mission to get them back. How is this any different, in terms of responsibility? We have the means, so… doesn’t the possibility of saving them all justify the risk ten times over? If we fail we’re no worse off that we started.”

“We could die,” Josh reminded him.

“...We could. Yes. I’d… I’d forgotten…” This seemed to disturb him most of all. “Because we didn’t die— I had forgotten—” He had to hunch over and breathe again. Finally: “We could. We’ll have to— ask Casey about it. Surely xe considered the possibility.”

Josh thought about this. “Let’s come up with some concerns for xem,” she said. Her heart was already in her throat. They really were going to do this, weren't they? “And we should— we should collect information… about what we’re up against.” She frowned, looking around the medbay. “Do you think Green managed that scan, before Lime…?”

There was a beep from the scanner monitor. “Affirmative,” Ignaz chirped. “Might I recommend a hot herbal beverage while you take a look at the results?”

“Fine,” Herman said, straightening rather suddenly, catching Josh’s arm as the movement almost knocked her over. “Surprise me, Ignaz. Pull up the scan. Josh, do you want anything?”

“Water, maybe?” She shrugged. It was still hard to really _want_ anything. Casey’s makeshift time machine couldn’t cure her depression instantly.

The micro-food synthesizer whirred to life, slowly at first like it was waking up from hibernation (which, Josh thought, it probably kind of _was_ ), printing two cups and filling them. Josh brought them over to Herman, who was squinting at the monitors so hard it looked like he was angry with them.

“That’s really annoying,” he murmured to himself. “I’d assumed they were Benters, or those little slug things from Eònan colony two.”

“Nope,” Ignaz said cheerily. “These appear— according to the analysis console in engines, which for _some_ reason has a multigalactic species lexicon, though it _is_ dated by about seven cycles, so there’s a great deal of margin for error there, but I did cross-reference with what public databases I could connect to via the networking pass in communications—”

“Ignaz,” Herman prompted, “the parasites.”

“Yes, apologies. I haven’t used such far-reaching search functions in _cycles_. According to my search, the alien parasite infesting Fred SEN55, designation Lime, is an unclassed flatworm comparative known indigenously as ‘impostor worm.’ It’s well-known for its ability to integrate with mammalian and mammalian-comparative nervous systems, taking control of the body in order to use it to feed.

“Because of its habit of dropping from height to land on its selected host, and its placement on the back of the neck, the colloquial names ‘Backslap’ and ‘Neckler’ have appeared in some circles.” Ignaz brought up a still image of the back of Lime’s head, neck and shoulders, presumably from the scan. “As you can see, the creature is practically invisible on attachment due to its thin body and camouflaging abilities. However, with heat imaging—” The image briefly flipped to one taken with a thermal camera, and Josh could see the rounded-rectangle of red and orange. “—a more complete picture is revealed. 

“Though the impostor worm is mainly limited to shades of brown and grey, it is often able to detect and absorb pigment from its host to better disguise itself. The mechanism behind this is not fully understood, as it is unknown what level of sentience the impostor worm possesses. All attempts to separate an attached impostor worm from its host has resulted in the immediate death of the worm, and marked deterioration in host cognition.” Josh looked at Herman to make sure she was hearing that right. His expression of alarm confirmed her understanding as well as her fear.

“Ignaz,” Herman said, “Bring up that thermal scan again. And the full-body.”

“Aye,” the computer said, and did so. Herman studied the images for a long time. “There’s some minor swelling here,” he said, pointing to Lime's jaw on the non-thermal photo. “But no fever; no spinal inflammation, nothing. There’s nothing to suggest— superficially— that Lime’s immune system has detected the parasite as a threat. Unless you did a deep scan.” He sounded doubtful.

“No. I couldn’t find much about the worm’s attachment and integration, either,” Ignaz admitted. “All of my search results are within the last deca-cycle from survivors of encounters on small trade ships and minor missions in the worm’s home system, Plyus. There haven’t been any studies from MIRA-level.”

“ _Damn_ it,” Herman hissed. “How the fuck did they even _get_ here, then?! We’re all MIRA veterans, Ignaz; have any of us even _been_ to Plyus?”

“Not according to the crew listing. I don’t know how they arrived.” Ignaz sounded as worried as his voice program allowed. “I overextended my search by six recommended spans and still couldn’t find anything that could possibly point to a contamination vector. I’m sorry.” _Six spans?_ Josh hoped her concern wasn’t too obvious. A search that broad should’ve found something— it should’ve reached a MIRA head station and triggered a broad synthesis of speculative data. Ignaz should’ve received anywhere from fifty to a hundred guesses about how the worms infiltrated the Skeld; _junk guesses,_ even. But _nothing_?

“Not your fault,” Herman replied. Josh wasn’t sure how much he knew about the ship’s search functions. “I know they keep medicoms’ wider processes pretty limited.” _Not_ **_that_ ** _limited._

“I really did try everything I could. But even the other systems onboard are restricted in reach. There’s a COG in the cockpit that might have something,” Josh’s ears perked up, “but I can’t tap it. I only know it’s there because I used the Comms system to extend the limits of the scanner.”

“That was risky,” Herman commented, raising his eyebrows. Josh had to agree. The scanner was powerful, but it was meant to be very targeted.

“The extended range weakened the intensity by a safe degree,” Ignaz said, “but I acknowledge your concern and will avoid it in the future.”

Herman sighed. “But I wouldn’t have known there was a COG otherwise, so I suppose that’s interesting. Is that really all you have on the parasite?”

There was a pause before Ignaz answered. “I have been able to discern its feeding method.”

Another pause. Herman frowned. “Which is?” he prompted. 

“Following dispatch of prey, the impostor worm detaches from its host briefly. It secretes a potent digestive acid and absorbs large quantities of dissolved flesh and other tissues before reattaching to the host. During this period, the host appears to remain unconscious,” Ignaz reported flatly. “It is speculated that the worm may return to the remains as many times as necessary to completely consume the body of its prey, barring outside intervention.”

Herman mulled over the new information for a while. “I see,” he finally spoke, both hands resting on the countertop. “Thank you, Ignaz.”

“Is there any further information I can provide? I have several photos of the results of such feeding, though it’s nothing you haven’t seen already.”

Herman cocked his head. “Nothing I haven’t see—” He stopped. Realization had struck him; his expression cleared briefly and then twisted with sympathy. “Oh _._ Irudine. Of course. My apologies, Ignaz, I hadn’t… realized.”

“I can also access the security feed, though the subjects’ distance from the hall camera will result in a loss of resolution.”

“No, Ignaz. I’m sorry. Thank you.”

“How’re you doing, Ignaz?” Josh cut in. Leave it to Herman to have an awkward moment with an AI. “You should sit tight a sec and check your systems after a search like that, right?”

“That sounds productive,” the medicomputer said. A loading bar popped up on the monitor.

“Oh, I’m a fucking asshole,” Herman groused, rubbing at his eyes. “Of course he’d be upset about Irudine. I forget medicoms have compatibility calibrations for ships’ medics. Ugh.” He went and sat on the bed again. Josh followed. “But that’s good information. They drop from above.”

“How do they get through the suits?” Josh asked.

“I imagine they have to wait until there’s an available breach, like mealtimes or offshift… or if some jackass decides he ‘just doesn’t want’ to wear his helmet.” Poor Harvey, Josh thought. He’d made himself a target without even knowing. “I know it gets toasty in electrical and storage. I assume Purple had zirs off to keep cool. And Lime worked in… O2-tech. Safest place in the ship to go visorless.”

“And cleaning the filters is easier without gloves,” Josh said. She’d worked maintenance on a few missions before the Skeld.

“Mm. I wonder what attempts at removal have been made. Integrating with the nervous system is finicky work to say the least, but in order to control the body of the host so finely, it would have to leave a lot intact. Besides, if there were damage, the host’s immune system ought to respond.” Josh, who had never had a good head for medicine, stared at Herman blankly. “Basically, if you assume our information thus far is complete— which it isn’t— any old neurosurgery tech should be able to remove it with little lasting impact. Something’s missing here.”

He began to pace the medbay floor robotically, hands behind his back. “They leave the host to feed, and the host stays put, which implies some kind of paralytic or similar, or possibly some kind of nerve damage that doesn’t register via scanner.” He stopped and pressed his hands to the sides of his face. “...Or something entirely different that I haven’t thought of. Fuck. _Fuck!_ Why couldn’t it have been Benters? Benters would’ve been so _easy. Fuck.”_

“So if we go back,” Josh said, “We’re going up against—”

“Against something no one’s ever beaten before,” Herman finished, jaw tight. “So I’d _really_ like to know Casey’s plan for if we—”

“Die? As long as _I_ live,” Casey said from the doorway, “I can simply rebuild the time machine. And as for the event of my death, well, I think I have a failsafe for _that_ , too.”

Herman whirled on xem. “How long have you been standing there?!”

Casey, who had been entering, backed away to hide a little behind the left side of the doorway. Josh could _just_ see Corviser standing on the right. “About six-point-three seconds,” xe blurted in response. “It’s been thirty minutes since you left, and Red said—”

“Has it?” Josh broke in, genuinely surprised. “Huh.”

Herman huffed and flexed his shoulders like he did when he felt really overwhelmed. “Fine. What’s the failsafe.”

Casey tentatively walked into the medbay, Corviser on xyr heels. “I’ve documented and stored the time machine plans in a block. All we need to do is give that information to a sapient-enough AI.”

Everyone turned to look at the medicomputer console.

“...Is Ignaz ‘sapient enough’?” Herman asked slowly.

“I—”

“It’s hard to say,” Ignaz cut in. Josh had been so caught up in the discussion that she hadn’t noticed he’d finished self-maintenance. “While I do possess more complex emotional capabilities than any of the other AI units in the Skeld’s systems, I wasn’t designed primarily for sentience. My intelligent function is secondary to my intended purpose as an aid to the ship’s medic— I’m meant to be generally agreeable, with a good bedside manner.”

“Are we willing to take the risk, then, is the question,” Casey said. Xe frowned, pensive. “I… I defer to your judgment, White.”

Herman raised his eyebrows. “I’d like some form of backup more reliable than Ignaz— no offense. What about the COG core in admin?”

“Cockpit,” Ignaz corrected.

“Right. Cockpit.”

“Why is there a COG in the cockpit?” Casey asked. “Wait, and how do you know?”

Josh could handle that one, at least: “Ignaz overloaded the scanner.” She made sure to convey in her tone _exactly_ how little she approved of the medicom’s bold stunt. Casey also gave the console a _very_ stern look.

“Would the COG fit in the android shell in storage?” xe asked. “We _could_ port in the time machine plans that way for a very sturdy backup. We wouldn’t even have to activate the core.”

“It’s a SHIELD model,” Ignaz reported, to Josh’s absolute astonishment. “About a hundred cycles old.”

Casey whistled lowly. “That’s… woof. I imagine it could still fit, but we would have to install a conversion mod. Which I… don’t know how to do.” They fiddled with the tinted goggles hanging around their neck.

“I do,” Josh said, surprising herself a little. Her brain was still stuck on the fact that there was an actual SHIELD unit onboard. “I, um, used to work with AI cores. Uh, mechanically, not socially. I can install a converter, no problem.”

Casey stared at her. “That’s a rare skill,” xe said. “And a rare bit of work experience. How’d you manage that?”

Josh shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. I can install the mod. Ignaz, where’s the core?”

“Left of the main console, taped to the back of the star map,” Ignaz reported.

“Alright,” Josh said. “Here’s what we can do. I’ll go get the core and install the converter over in admin. Casey, you bring the plans in here and upload them to Ignaz. Herman, you see what else you can dig up on this ‘impostor worm’ through a manual search in comms.”

“Aye,” Herman said with a mock salute. He was smirking. “Going after my title, madam?”

Josh rolled her eyes and tried to hide her smile. “Watch your back,” she joked as she left.

* * *

Josh had just left the caf when she realized she was being followed. “Hey, Corv.”

The quiet footsteps quickened to catch up, and Corviser’s gloved hand took hold of hers. Josh was the only adult who wore her full suit much these days. Casey stuck to just xyr jumpsuit and a respirator, and Herman had a habit of folding the upper half of his outer suit down, almost like having a jacket around his waist. Josh didn’t mind that at all.

“So,” the spawnling said, “What’s a SHIELD model?”

Josh squeezed their hand. Right. The bit of information that kept sending her brain into a fit. “Solo-crew cargo ships— ‘Sogos’— used to be a big part of MIRA transport, about a hundred cycles ago. So there would be a cargo ship almost twenty times larger than this one, but with only one person manning it; pilot, captain, engineer, and cook.” Recalling all of this was a bit of a strain. She’d learned it all years ago, and had never had the need to recount it to anyone. “But with a ship that large, and only one person to run it, MIRA had to supply each ship with an AI assistant to control the functions that would normally have been carried out by a full complement. Shields, weapons, O2-tech; reactor and wiring maintenance; even cleaning the air vents— all performed remotely by the ship’s SHIELD core. It would be able to manage and direct any digital system on the ship, and it would have had access to ‘arms’ in every room for interacting physically with the contents.”

“Wow,” Corviser said. They followed Josh to one side of the navigation console. Sure enough, a small metal wedge was taped up messily to the back of the digital star map’s screen. It was a bit of a chore to remove. Josh wondered why it could possibly be here, and why someone had intentionally hidden it. I mean— it had to be intentional, right? She cradled the brassy block in her palm.

“SHIELD units also functioned as companions for the pilots,” Josh continued softly. She was holding a relic, an incredibly sophisticated piece of obsolete technology— not _ancient,_ but it might as well have been, what with the rate of progress being so high. “But they were very difficult and expensive to build, and often didn’t perform to full capacity when it came to social support of the Sogos’ pilots. Soon, MIRA moved on— first to androids like the shell in storage, then to synth crews and clones. And the SHIELD units were left to disappear slowly on their own.” She frowned. She almost felt a kinship with the little core. “There were only twenty to ever be made. I wonder which one this is.”

“Sixteen,” Corviser said, pointing. “It says on the side.” Sure enough, below a series of ridges, there was a tiny ‘16’ stamped into the metal. “Do you think it’ll know what’s going on?”

“I doubt it,” Josh said. “This one probably hasn’t been active since being removed from its ship.” 

“Which was probably over 400 years ago,” Corviser inferred, trotting beside her on the way to admin. “Maybe we’d better not activate it, then. Just upload the plans.”

Josh nodded. “It’ll be our backup’s backup. We’ll only activate it in the worst-case scenario.”

They got to the administration room and Josh secured the core into the tiny vise at one of the cubicles, swinging the magnifier down from overhead. There were a couple of ports along the edge of one of the core’s two large faces, and fortunately there was a matching cable attached to the cubicle computer. _These Skeld models really have it all._ Unlike with her knowledge of AI cores, Josh hadn’t had Skeld data beamed into her head at a young age, so she was a lot less familiar with the ship’s layout and capabilities than she would’ve liked.

She wasn’t surprised to find that the digital conversion modifications on the admin computers were too new to be directly compatible with the SHIELD, but they weren’t _as_ new as she’d expected. She sat down to get to work. Corviser watched over her shoulder awhile, then drifted over to the map and fiddled with the display.

About an hour into her careful modifications, Herman came in with a glass of some kind of fruit juice. “How’s it going?” he asked, casually leaning against the cubicle divider.

“Not terrible,” Josh said, pausing her typing to drink. “I’d forgotten how advanced SHIELDs are— it keeps _correcting_ me. I can’t decide if it’s comforting or infuriating.”

“How’s it correcting you?”

“Conversion modifications are pretty similar now to how they were 500 years ago,” Josh said, “So most of what I’m having to do is supply information about the core itself.” It was a heavily simplified explanation, but it would suffice. “I guess it knows itself better than anyone. I didn’t expect it to be so responsive, though.”

“Maybe it’s anxious to wake up,” Herman said, shrugging. “I’m sure you’ve figured out by now that I’m not exactly an expert when it comes to more… complicated systems.”

“You’re an expert on _the brain_ ,” Josh countered. “That’s a pretty complicated system.”

“Point.” Herman watched her, but he was out of his element by his own admission. “I talked to Casey and Ignaz about time travel,” he said after a moment. “I was worried about you and Corviser. Did you know Casey’s planetborn? Anyway. We’ve determined that the neurological impact of this specific use of time travel is negligible. Probably.”

“‘Probably,’” Josh repeated drily. She could already tell where this was going.

She didn’t look up from her work, but she swore she could feel Herman frown. When he spoke, it was in a much lower voice than before. “Corviser will be fine. Ignaz found a few niche reports about matrix-reared clones and temporal distortion. There’s— unsurprisingly— nothing about members of the Matterhorn Dozen.”

Josh flinched, hitting the Enter key so hard it shook the whole cubicle. “ _Damn it._ Herman. Don’t— don’t just _say_ it.”

“What am I supposed to do, make a fucking anagram? Josh, you could die. Worse, you could become unstuck from time, semi-consciously drifting through a cosmos undetectable to _anyone_ you’ve ever known.”

Was it really, _truly_ necessary to say it in fucking _prose_?! “Thanks, Herman, I’ve read about time travel before,” she growled. “Just back off, okay? I’m going. I’d want someone to come back for _me_ if _I_ died, so _I’m_ going to go back for _them_.” She angrily mashed a few more keys. The AI core corrected a typo. She flipped it off. Some very mature moments were happening aboard the Skeld.

“I’m not here to tell you not to go,” Herman bit back like a bitter wind. “I just wanted to make sure you were aware of the risks.”

“ _Of fucking course_ I’m aware of the risks,” Josh spat. “Or, I’m sorry, do you think you know more about _my own biology_ than _I_ do?” She stopped and stood to face him, jamming a finger into his chest. “I mean it when I say _back off_. You may have read about Matterhorn on a screen but you have _no idea_ what it was like to live it, so _stop acting like you know what I’ve been through!”_

Herman’s face was flushed, brows low, lips curled, but the real reason Josh could tell she had hurt him was because he wouldn’t look at her. She didn’t see the need to say more— so she didn’t. She turned away and bent over the computer. She felt sick. It was a disgusting feeling, to be cognizant of the fact that there were _strangers_ who had read about her in some academic paper and could hold that knowledge over her head like a dangling weight. 

The worst of it was that, in a way, Herman _did_ know what she’d been through; if he chose to, he could claim to know more about it than she did. The people who read those reports had access to information about the Matterhorn Dozen that Josh had never even conceived of during her childhood. She’d never been given the freedom, the opportunity. 

She’d had to spend a lot of time convincing herself that people like that, people who read about Matterhorn and had convinced themselves that they were experts, would _always_ know less than she and her siblings. Interactions like the one she’d just had with Herman set her back miles. Her head hurt. She stopped mindlessly typing— hadn’t realized she’d started— and saw that the SHIELD core had been deleting her nonsense text. A new input window had opened over the one she’d been using. It had a single line:

“>NEW PROGRAMMER Y/N”

Josh looked around the room. Herman was gone, and so was Corviser, which Josh was conflicted about: she didn’t want any more company, but she didn’t want them getting a one-sided explanation of the argument from Herman if they chanced to ask. _Whatever_ , she thought bitterly. _He can say what he likes. He’ll never face what I have._ She enthusiastically redirected her attention to the AI, before her brain went too far down blurry rabbit-holes of memory.

“>>N” she typed. No, she was just _distracted._

A pause.

“>TIRED Y/N

>HUNGRY Y/N

>THIRSTY Y/N

>SOMETHING ELSE Y/N”

Josh smiled numbly at the screen. The SHIELD core gave off the air of a worried friend. She wondered briefly if its past pilots had been receptive to such a personality. _She_ didn’t mind being fussed over like this, but she imagined that someone like Herman— _Don’t think about Herman._

“>>N N N Y” she replied, knowing the AI could distinguish the answers. She wasn’t sure why it was writing like this; from what she knew, it ought to be able to type in complete sentences just fine. Still, part of her found it charming, and she played along.

“>REQUEST INPUT”

Josh sighed. “>>ARGUMENT WITH CREWMATE” she typed. “>>NOT IMPORTANT”

“>IT SOUNDS IMPORTANT” the core countered. “>ASSISTANCE REQUIRED Y/N”

“>>DEFINE ASSISTANCE”

“>INITIATE AUTOINSTALLATION PROTOCOLS FOR ANDROID CAST E54 T VARIANT” it answered. Josh was impressed it had recognized the planned target of her conversion mod, and then she was shocked, and then she was completely confused.

“>>HOW DO YOU KNOW ABOUT CAST E54 ANDROID CONMODS” she asked it.

“>I AM VERY HIP FOR MY AGE”

Josh laughed aloud, a startled but genuine laugh that felt like a fresh breath of air after the earlier altercation. “>>IF YOU ARE CONFIDENT THEN Y” she typed.

“>I AM 93% CONFIDENT. INITIATE Y/N”

“>>Y” This was incredible; this was _really_ incredible. Josh hadn’t expected the core to be autocorrecting code, let alone initiating conversations. She watched as the dialogue window closed and the core fleshed out the rest of its data for the conversion mod. It lasted perhaps another fifteen minutes before “>INSTALLATION COMPLETE” appeared and Josh unplugged the AI core. 

She’d have to talk to Herman again, wouldn’t she? She sighed. _‘My apologies if I overstepped…’_ she envisioned, scowling. She tried not to think about that. It would only make her angrier.

* * *

Josh caught up to Casey outside medbay, pacing and talking to xemself in some dialect of Kesht. When xe saw her, xe stopped abruptly, flushing maroon. “Sorry,” xe said, as if xe had done something wrong. “I got the plans uploaded to Ignaz. I doubt that will actually go through the warp, though. Did you bring the SHIELD core?”

Josh showed him the metal obelisk. Xe looked at it with appropriate reverence and hovered one hand over it like xe was afraid to touch it. Eventually, xe pulled back xyr hand.

“Let’s bring it to storage. I’ve sent White and Corviser down already, to dust off the shell.” Xe started walking without waiting for Josh to fall into step.

Josh really hadn’t seen much of Casey outside of mealtimes. She was surprised at how unfamiliar xyr face still was to her. Xe had a lot of scars, which was certainly distinguishing, but in terms of face shape and proportion Josh had never really given xem a hard look. Xyr skin was only a few shades darker than hers, but warmer, and it lacked a shine. Xyr eye had two lids and a round, black pupil, again, not dissimilar from a human’s, but the iris was a light golden-yellow. Xyr lower incisors were very sharp, and Josh was pretty sure Kesh had another row of smaller upper incisors behind the first. She’d never seen Casey open xyr mouth wide enough to tell.

Josh had met several alien species before the Skeld, mostly in MIRA training. Mordrenns and Rrevselik were common, Kesh less so. Josh wondered what had propelled Casey into MIRA employment. Xe was a fantastic engineer and technician, obviously, or xe wouldn’t have been able to make a goddamn time machine out of spare parts. She thought she’d heard a stereotype about Kesh being good in fights, but she couldn’t believe Casey fit that mold. She was 90% sure xyr injuries were all work-related. Herman said xe kept accidentally setting off xyr personal monitor reaching for loose wires without protective gloves.

Casey slowed in the hallway outside admin. “Hey, Red,” xe said. Xe sounded anxious. Xyr hands were messing with xyr goggles.

“Hm?”

“I just wanted to say that, um. The machine was Corviser’s idea.”

Josh did not know why xe was telling her this. Maybe xe would explain.

“They heard about it on an episode of that awful MIRA show. Came and told me.”

“Uh…huh.” _Well,_ **_fuck_ ** _that show,_ Josh thought. _Absolute tripe._

Casey stopped and turned to face her. “I’d rather you not mention to them that I told this to you, but, um… they said they’d already _asked_ you and White about it.” Xyr teeth were bared nervously behind xyr respirator. “And then I made the mistake of telling them that I’d already _made_ a time machine before. I was trying to warn them it was very dangerous, but— once they found out I had experience, they wouldn’t drop the subject.”

“Wait— hang on.” Josh was processing. “You’ve _made_ a time machine before?” She realized a second after saying it that Casey was telling her Corviser had lied. Josh could deal with that _later_. _Fuck!_

“Yes,” Casey said. Xe looked away. “It was… not well thought out. I wasn’t very old at the time. I was trying to—” Xe stopped and shook xyr head. “That’s not important. Right now I am trying to apologize. I should have checked with you and White. I knew something was wrong when you were so surprised, but I didn’t want to make matters any worse in the moment.” Xe sighed. “So I’m telling you now.”

Josh took another moment to mull everything over in her head. “Is the time machine functional?” she asked. 

“Of course,” xe said, frowning. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Oh— uh. I assumed your first one, um, wasn’t.” Josh tugged at her own harness strap sheepishly. It had just seemed like a reasonable guess. She didn’t know much about time machines but she knew they tended to explode at unreasonable magnitudes.

“Why? — _Oh_.” Xe idly scratched xyr cheek. “No, this mess is from something different. You can ask Irudine when we go back. I hate talking about it myself, but I don’t care who else does. My time machine worked adequately, I just made a mistake and deleted about six square meters of parkland from existence.” Xe smiled awkwardly at her. “There are a lot more known failsafes these days. It would be very hard to delete _anything_ from existence.”

Josh didn’t feel very reassured.

“Also,” Casey said, still sounding as though xe was treading carefully, “though White didn’t tell me very much about your origins—”

“I really don’t—” Josh tried to cut xem off.

Xe held up xyr hands. “I wanted to say that I don’t think you’re in any danger of affected consciousness. Obviously neurology isn’t my area of expertise, but generally the worst effects of time travel are seen in participants who have experienced artificially accelerated or decelerated cell growth, such as Quikspawns or— what do they call those— organic databases. You developed at a natural rate, so you should be fine. And I assume White already informed you, but matrix-reared spawnlings are also generally hardy time travelers as long as they remain attached to a functioning support matrix. The temporal-distortion threat is effectively nullified by the bolster the matrix creates.” Xe took a deep breath. “Sorry; I tend to get carried away— I confess it was probably easier for Corviser to convince me to begin work than it ought to have been. I… enjoy temporal applications.”

_Clearly._ Josh sighed. She’d zoned out hard in the middle of that monologue, but tuned back in at the mention of Corviser. She got the idea: it was (probably) safe to time travel. She didn’t think it mattered, though, at this point. As she saw it, everyone was already quite decided. “Thanks, Case,” she said. Xe didn’t deserve to be treated coldly. Xe was just trying to help. Xe had people xe wanted to save just as badly as Herman or Corviser.

_Actually…_

“Casey, you don’t have to answer this, but— why are _you_ going back?”

Casey had turned to head for storage, but xe stopped short. Xe didn’t turn around, but looked over xyr shoulder at Josh with a rueful half-smile. “I’m going back for Purple, Lime, and Brown, mostly,” xe said, “Though I don’t think anyone on this ship deserves to die. They were always kind to me. And Purple was young.” Xyr smile grew strained. “I forget how young you live-birthers can be. Kesh hatch nearly fully-developed, you know. Purple would probably still be in an egg.”

Josh had forgotten that Kesh were an egg-laying species. She wondered how old Casey was. Purple had been, what, nineteen? Fresh off the training block. She’d seen zem a couple of times at late meals on offshift but never really _looked._ Josh had never really _looked_ at any of her crewmates.

Now she had a chance to change that.

“Let’s prep this core,” she said, leading the way into storage. She was so determined that there was no room left to be angry or upset or afraid. As she passed Casey, she saw xyr teeth bared with the same sentiment. It was almost time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can choose your own morals for this one.


End file.
